They did an article on Victoria Derbyshire’s phone in on Radio 5 today. There was some professor of racism or something who disagreed, an ex Met Fed person who agreed, and that distasteful man Met Commander Ali Dizaei who also disagreed, mind, he is suing the Met for racial & religious discrimination.

The usual suspects phoned in, police officers who said they’d never witnessed any racism and black & Asian men who said they got stopped 27 times a night because they were black (or Asian).

One such caller called in to say he was stopped for no reason, didn’t have any ID on him and was then taken to a police station for no reason where the police tried to prove his identityÃ‚Â for no reason and after 3 weeks or something he was finally let out. He gave sufficient detail that anyone knowing about the case would have recognised it, indeed someone claiming to be a police officer with some knowledge emailed in to say the reason he wasÃ‚Â stopped and taken to the police station was that he had been breaking the law & had no way of proving who he was, which sounded like standard fare really, whether you’re black or white.

One of his complaints was that the officer asked him to take his hands out of his pockets. When he asked why, he was told that people sometimes had weapons in their pockets and the officer wanted to satisfy himself that he was as safe as possible while dealing with someone. Obviously, this was racist because he was black. I recognise this as being pretty standard procedure, particularly in an area of high knife crime.

Dizaei chipped in at this point to say that he’d been a police officer for 24 years (or something) & could count on one hand the amount of times he’d asked people to take their hands out of their pockets, that was completely unnecessary & therefore this was clearly racist behaviour.

I don’t know the man (Dizaei) nor his working practices but I wouldn’t mind hazarding a guess that someone who has reached the heights of a Met Commander can count on the fingers of a half eaten Twix bar the amount of times he’s done a stop check on the streets of London late at night (or any other time) in the last few years.

He did, however, accept that the racism within the police force was not generally at the street & PC level, but on the top floors of the senior officers, much like himself, really.

When we used to take people back to the station in the car we’d insist they put their hands on the back of the front seat so you knew where they were – thank God Mr Dizaei wasn’t around to see that!

January 20th, 2009 at
13:32

R/T says:

Back in the day prisoners were often transported to the nick in the back of a DSU carrier with half-a-dozen rufty-tufty types. BY the time they got to the nick most of the bods were fairly quiet!

January 20th, 2009 at
15:24

Metanon says:

bit suprised that dizy dizaei is still around if he didnt ask people to take their hands out of their pockets when he searched them, i couldnt image not asking someone to.
perhaps we shouldnt let firearms officers draw their weapons when they suspect someone to be in posession of a gun lest that be deemed racist.

January 20th, 2009 at
15:59

Tony F says:

It’s similar to not turning off the electricity before re wiring a socket. Basic safety procedure. I am surprised that elfinsafety are not jumping up and down on him.

Actually..there’s a thought, set H&S on to him. But, I suspect he will claim that they are being racist.

January 20th, 2009 at
17:49

John says:

I think that this just goes to show how far the senior management are removed from the grass roots. I would insist that someone takes their hands out of their pockets even before I considered approaching them, yes even open their fists and show me their palms too! If they didn’t or ran away (as they often try) they obviously have something to hide. I don’t care if they are white, black or even bleeding pink, I have a family to go home to (at the moment). Just to balance things up I have 10 years in and am still a con, no great aspirations at the mo and I am certainly not a senior officer.
Perhaps the MET should be relieved that this senior “officer” has left as he clearly has no idea what happens on the streets anymore. Unfortunately the MET is not the only force who suffers from this malady.